Fox Derangement Syndrome

Fox Derangement Syndrome is an idiomatic phrase used to refer to wildly exaggerated overreaction to the news, opinion shows, and very existence of the Fox News Channel. Although the term did not exist at the time, a good example occurred during the December 1, 2003 broadcast of Hardball with Chris Matthews, in which liberalDemocrat political commentator Chris Matthews asked liberal Democrat politician Howard Dean, "Would you break up Fox?", to which Dean replied: "On ideological grounds, absolutely yes."[1] On a similar note, shortly after the edited version of the ABC special The Path to 9/11 aired, when Fox commentator Chris Wallace brought Clinton on and tried to ask Bill Clinton why he didn't connect the dots about al Qaida and Osama bin Laden and take them out earlier, Clinton infamously proceeded to viciously accuse him of bringing him in to interrogate him on the Fox Network while falsely implying that ABC had right-wing elements releasing The Path to 9/11.[2][3]

Political commentator Michelle Malkin used the phrase on her website on February 16, 2006.[4] Journalist Bernard Goldberg uses it as a chapter title of his book Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve, which was reviewed by U. S. News and World Report.[5]